The playroom is almost finished. The kids played in it today. We moved all of the baskets of toys inside. Now we have to sort, toss, give away, and put away. We hope to have pictures soon of our newest adventure in home repair! Of course, this repair was not planned, but was absolutely necessary. Our recently departed cat, Abby, had peed and pooped on the floor so badly that no one could go in there it smelled so bad. (She was senile and mad at us for adding a cat to the family and moving to Texas.) It had become the “poo” room. Now we tore everything out, bleached the heck out of the concrete slab underneath it, and placed three layers of plastic under the new wood floor.

Flying kites was so easy while we were there. You just tossed the kite in the air and it flew. We did discover two things. One . . . Ainsley loves to fly kites. Two . . . Ben is terrified of kites. He had so many breakdowns he started having panic attacks. He thought the kites would fly away. Nothing could convince him otherwise. So he and I would take walks while the girls and Dad had fun with the kites.

We spent four days at Surfside Beach. Relaxing in the waves and the water was a fabulous destresser (not sure if that is a word). I am reluctant to even say the name of the beach. I don’t want our slice of heaven to suddenly be overrun by vacationers trying to find the same serenity that we found. We were by ourselves most of the time with only about half a dozen people total on either side of us within 200 yards. The best part of the vacation was when Uncle Will and his girls Kamryn and Taylor joined us. We loved it! We hope that we can go back next year for the same vacation.

This is the view from our room! Beautiful.

Madie's surfing on Uncle Will's board

Ben relaxed in the water

Ainsley is running to Mommy!

Kamryn loaned us her boogie board. Madie is determined to surf those waves!

We have heard from Ben’s surgeon and he will have surgery on November 18th. We will see the surgeon on October 5th for a consultation. We were told that the date is “fluid.” If there is an opening, he might go earlier. On Oct. 5, the surgeon could decide to move the surgery date up. We just don’t know. Now we start to prepare! Cleaning the house. Stocking up on supplies. Talking to teachers and the school officials. Lining up volunteers to help with the girls. The list is long, but we will make it! My most important job is to keep Ben healthy until the day of his surgery. No flu. No colds. No mysterious fungal infection. My children have always managed to get every weird illness known to man. In fact we may have discovered a few more. So it won’t be easy!